Advanced physical models and monitoring methods for in situ bioremediation

Numerous reports have indicated that contamination at DOE facilities is widespread and pervasive. Existing technology is often too costly or ineffective in remediating these contamination problems. An effective method to address one class of contamination, petroleum hydrocarbons, is in situ bioremediation. This project was designed to provide tools and approaches for increasing the reliability of in situ bioremediation. An example of the recognition within DOE for developing these tools is in the FY-1995 Technology Development Needs Summary of the Office of Technology Development of the US DOE. This document identifies specific needs addressed by this research. For example, Section 3.3 Need Statement IS-3 identifies the need for a {open_quotes}Rapid method to detect in situ biodegradation products.{close_quotes} Also, BW-I identifies the need to recognize boundaries between clean and contaminated materials and soils. Metabolic activity could identify these boundaries. Measuring rates of in situ microbial activity is critical to the fundamental understanding of subsurface microbiology and in selecting natural attenuation as a remediation option. Given the complexity and heterogeneity of subsurface environments, a significant cost incurred during bioremediation is the characterization of microbial activity, in part because so many intermediate end points (biomass, gene frequency, laboratory measurements of activity, etc.) must be used to infer in situ activity. A fast, accurate, real-time, and cost-effective method is needed to determine success of bioremediation at DOE sites